Local food: lets get serious – NOW!

Although the demand for locally grown food has increased over the past 20 years, most people still shop at the major food chains. I suspect this is because we live busy lives and supermarkets provide a full range of products year round, are convenient with good parking, and are open every day. Not everyone is willing to join a CSA or stop at the local farmers market. But given the continued pressure of global climate change, peak oil, and economic stress, I think we need to get really serious about building a vibrant local food system – NOW!

We need to build a Food Commons, a national network of local and regional food production, processing and distribution options to complement and partially replace the current corporate food system, which is showing signs of being in serious trouble. According to the authors of the Food Commons proposal,“…the antidote to the unsustainable path we are on is a 21st-century re-envisioning and re-creation of the local and regional food systems that pre-dated the current global industrial food system.”

The Food Commons Proposal

The proposed national Food Commons would consist of three intersecting components:

The Food Commons Trust

I’m pleased to be a board member of the North Amherst Community Farm, which is an example of a Food Commons Trust. NACF is a community group that was organized in 2006 to save one of the last working farms in North Amherst, Massachusetts. Private donations, town and state funds were acquired to protect this farm from development. It is now leased to an organic vegetable and livestock farm, Simple Gifts Farm, which provides food to the community through a successful CSA and local farmers markets. You are invited and encouraged to help us support this project.

The Food Commons Bank

We have an example of this sort of financial institution emerging in our region called the Common Good Bank. This is a bank created to serve the common good. According to their mission statement, by “common good” they mean:

“First and foremost, the well-being of each and every individual person, including adequate food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, education, community, satisfying work, rest, and self-determination, empowering those in need.

“Second, peace and justice — a spirit of cooperation and community between all people, with compassionate sharing of the world’s resources.

“Third, a healthy, sustainable planet, with clean air, clean water, clean earth and a healthy and diverse population of animals and plants.”

The first ever Common Good Festival will be held in Amherst, MA on July 10, 2011 to raise awareness of Common Good Finance, a nonprofit organization working to bring economic democracy to communities in Western Massachusetts.

Other examples are being developed, but one way you can help support better financing for the local food system is to write to the Farm Credit Administration (FCA) asking them to direct FCS banks to be more responsive to the credit needs of small and mid-sized farmers and ranchers producing for local and regional food markets. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition has a web page to help those willing to write a letter.

The Food Commons Hub

I am not aware of any local food hub as envisioned by the Food Common proposal, but there is interest in developing such a project in our region. The Feed Northampton Study produced by the Conway School of Landscape Design proposed neighborhood based “food hub” facilities to provide; commonly-owned packaging, cooling, processing, waste management and education for farms in the area. The report includes a proposal to redevelop a local fairgrounds as a food hub.

What can you do?

The global food system will always favor large, financially efficient businesses which exploit people, undermine democracy and erode community, and degrade the land in order to maximize profits. If we want to build a vibrant and sustainable food system, we need public investments in a local production, processing and distribution infrastructure (similar to the investment in the national highway system).

At the same time, we need to integrate the drive for economic growth with a concern for the environment and a commitment to social justice. Unless we are willing to pass regulations and tax laws mandating more sustainable practices in the global marketplace (which is unlikely), this will require a major public investment in infrastructure that will help us relocalize our food system and move in a more sustainable direction.

19 thoughts on “Local food: lets get serious – NOW!”

John,
I agree with what you are doing and that the banking structure is at the root of the problem and that CGB is worthy of our immediate strong support, but it must go much deeper. The following is a conversation I had with the maker of Carbon Nation and Ellen Brown, the author of Web of Debt. We need to pay much more attention to biochar and its carbon sequestration and carbon negative energy potential.
Alan Page
—————————-
From: Peter Byck <peter@carbonnation.tv>
Subject: Carbon Nation
To: alan@greendiamondsystems.com
Date: Monday, June 27, 2011, 10:31 PM

I have been asked by the MA State Banking Public Bank Formation Study Commission to connect the dots for them regarding why it is time for MA to have a Publicly owned bank. I wish I could just show them your film, but I believe that you have pulled too many punches. The dots that need to be connected include:
Dot One: Resource Limits
Dot Two: Food Supply
Dot Three: Corporate Goals
Dot Four: Everything Runs on Funding
Dot Five: Climate Crisis
Dot Six: Current Funding Errors Dot Seven: Infrastructure
Dot Eight: Equity
Dot Nine: How Banking works – out of thin air
Dot Ten: Opportunities – BIOCHAR – Carbon negative energy

HI Peter,
We will do what we can to promote your film, but until then the jury is out on many of these items. I have included below a request for help to Ellen Brown, author of Web of Debt, and expanded on my very short comment to you with some examples. I disagree that the very temporary kinds of carbon sequestration (that come either from the ag examples you mention or my own discipline – forest production) are worthy of much coverage when compared to the potential for multi-millennial sequestration potential of biochar and its production enhancements. I commend you for your efforts but there is much more to do. I suggest that the next installment could be entitled "The Deciders" and cover the process of how any small community could task each one to be part of deciding how the community handles critical decisions of population control, investment decisions … on a cyclical basis that involves everyone of voting age.
Alan Page
(the first of several sections)

John,
I agree with what you are doing and that the banking structure is at the root of the problem and that CGB is worthy of our immediate strong support, but it must go much deeper. The following is a conversation I had with the maker of Carbon Nation and Ellen Brown, the author of Web of Debt. We need to pay much more attention to biochar and its carbon sequestration and carbon negative energy potential.
Alan Page
—————————-
From: Peter Byck <peter@carbonnation.tv>
Subject: Carbon Nation
To: alan@greendiamondsystems.com
Date: Monday, June 27, 2011, 10:31 PM

I have been asked by the MA State Banking Public Bank Formation Study Commission to connect the dots for them regarding why it is time for MA to have a Publicly owned bank. I wish I could just show them your film, but I believe that you have pulled too many punches. The dots that need to be connected include:
Dot One: Resource Limits
Dot Two: Food Supply
Dot Three: Corporate Goals
Dot Four: Everything Runs on Funding
Dot Five: Climate Crisis
Dot Six: Current Funding Errors Dot Seven: Infrastructure
Dot Eight: Equity
Dot Nine: How Banking works – out of thin air
Dot Ten: Opportunities – BIOCHAR – Carbon negative energy

HI Peter,
We will do what we can to promote your film, but until then the jury is out on many of these items. I have included below a request for help to Ellen Brown, author of Web of Debt, and expanded on my very short comment to you with some examples. I disagree that the very temporary kinds of carbon sequestration (that come either from the ag examples you mention or my own discipline – forest production) are worthy of much coverage when compared to the potential for multi-millennial sequestration potential of biochar and its production enhancements. I commend you for your efforts but there is much more to do. I suggest that the next installment could be entitled "The Deciders" and cover the process of how any small community could task each one to be part of deciding how the community handles critical decisions of population control, investment decisions … on a cyclical basis that involves everyone of voting age.
Alan Page
(the first of several sections)

John,
I agree with what you are doing and that the banking structure is at the root of the problem and that CGB is worthy of our immediate strong support, but it must go much deeper. The following is a conversation I had with the maker of Carbon Nation and Ellen Brown, the author of Web of Debt. We need to pay much more attention to biochar and its carbon sequestration and carbon negative energy potential.
Alan Page
—————————-
From: Peter Byck <peter@carbonnation.tv>
Subject: Carbon Nation
To: alan@greendiamondsystems.com
Date: Monday, June 27, 2011, 10:31 PM

I have been asked by the MA State Banking Public Bank Formation Study Commission to connect the dots for them regarding why it is time for MA to have a Publicly owned bank. I wish I could just show them your film, but I believe that you have pulled too many punches. The dots that need to be connected include:
Dot One: Resource Limits
Dot Two: Food Supply
Dot Three: Corporate Goals
Dot Four: Everything Runs on Funding
Dot Five: Climate Crisis
Dot Six: Current Funding Errors Dot Seven: Infrastructure
Dot Eight: Equity
Dot Nine: How Banking works – out of thin air
Dot Ten: Opportunities – BIOCHAR – Carbon negative energy

HI Peter,
We will do what we can to promote your film, but until then the jury is out on many of these items. I have included below a request for help to Ellen Brown, author of Web of Debt, and expanded on my very short comment to you with some examples. I disagree that the very temporary kinds of carbon sequestration (that come either from the ag examples you mention or my own discipline – forest production) are worthy of much coverage when compared to the potential for multi-millennial sequestration potential of biochar and its production enhancements. I commend you for your efforts but there is much more to do. I suggest that the next installment could be entitled "The Deciders" and cover the process of how any small community could task each one to be part of deciding how the community handles critical decisions of population control, investment decisions … on a cyclical basis that involves everyone of voting age.
Alan Page
(the first of several sections)

John,
I agree with what you are doing and that the banking structure is at the root of the problem and that CGB is worthy of our immediate strong support, but it must go much deeper. The following is a conversation I had with the maker of Carbon Nation and Ellen Brown, the author of Web of Debt. We need to pay much more attention to biochar and its carbon sequestration and carbon negative energy potential.
Alan Page
—————————-
From: Peter Byck <peter@carbonnation.tv>
Subject: Carbon Nation
To: alan@greendiamondsystems.com
Date: Monday, June 27, 2011, 10:31 PM

I have been asked by the MA State Banking Public Bank Formation Study Commission to connect the dots for them regarding why it is time for MA to have a Publicly owned bank. I wish I could just show them your film, but I believe that you have pulled too many punches. The dots that need to be connected include:
Dot One: Resource Limits
Dot Two: Food Supply
Dot Three: Corporate Goals
Dot Four: Everything Runs on Funding
Dot Five: Climate Crisis
Dot Six: Current Funding Errors Dot Seven: Infrastructure
Dot Eight: Equity
Dot Nine: How Banking works – out of thin air
Dot Ten: Opportunities – BIOCHAR – Carbon negative energy

HI Peter,
We will do what we can to promote your film, but until then the jury is out on many of these items. I have included below a request for help to Ellen Brown, author of Web of Debt, and expanded on my very short comment to you with some examples. I disagree that the very temporary kinds of carbon sequestration (that come either from the ag examples you mention or my own discipline – forest production) are worthy of much coverage when compared to the potential for multi-millennial sequestration potential of biochar and its production enhancements. I commend you for your efforts but there is much more to do. I suggest that the next installment could be entitled "The Deciders" and cover the process of how any small community could task each one to be part of deciding how the community handles critical decisions of population control, investment decisions … on a cyclical basis that involves everyone of voting age.
Alan Page
(the first of several sections)

John,
I agree with what you are doing and that the banking structure is at the root of the problem and that CGB is worthy of our immediate strong support, but it must go much deeper. The following is a conversation I had with the maker of Carbon Nation and Ellen Brown, the author of Web of Debt. We need to pay much more attention to biochar and its carbon sequestration and carbon negative energy potential.
Alan Page
—————————-
From: Peter Byck <peter@carbonnation.tv>
Subject: Carbon Nation
To: alan@greendiamondsystems.com
Date: Monday, June 27, 2011, 10:31 PM

I have been asked by the MA State Banking Public Bank Formation Study Commission to connect the dots for them regarding why it is time for MA to have a Publicly owned bank. I wish I could just show them your film, but I believe that you have pulled too many punches. The dots that need to be connected include:
Dot One: Resource Limits
Dot Two: Food Supply
Dot Three: Corporate Goals
Dot Four: Everything Runs on Funding
Dot Five: Climate Crisis
Dot Six: Current Funding Errors Dot Seven: Infrastructure
Dot Eight: Equity
Dot Nine: How Banking works – out of thin air
Dot Ten: Opportunities – BIOCHAR – Carbon negative energy

HI Peter,
We will do what we can to promote your film, but until then the jury is out on many of these items. I have included below a request for help to Ellen Brown, author of Web of Debt, and expanded on my very short comment to you with some examples. I disagree that the very temporary kinds of carbon sequestration (that come either from the ag examples you mention or my own discipline – forest production) are worthy of much coverage when compared to the potential for multi-millennial sequestration potential of biochar and its production enhancements. I commend you for your efforts but there is much more to do. I suggest that the next installment could be entitled "The Deciders" and cover the process of how any small community could task each one to be part of deciding how the community handles critical decisions of population control, investment decisions … on a cyclical basis that involves everyone of voting age.
Alan Page
(the first of several sections)

John,
I agree with what you are doing and that the banking structure is at the root of the problem and that CGB is worthy of our immediate strong support, but it must go much deeper. The following is a conversation I had with the maker of Carbon Nation and Ellen Brown, the author of Web of Debt. We need to pay much more attention to biochar and its carbon sequestration and carbon negative energy potential.
Alan Page
—————————-
From: Peter Byck <peter@carbonnation.tv>
Subject: Carbon Nation
To: alan@greendiamondsystems.com
Date: Monday, June 27, 2011, 10:31 PM

I have been asked by the MA State Banking Public Bank Formation Study Commission to connect the dots for them regarding why it is time for MA to have a Publicly owned bank. I wish I could just show them your film, but I believe that you have pulled too many punches. The dots that need to be connected include:
Dot One: Resource Limits
Dot Two: Food Supply
Dot Three: Corporate Goals
Dot Four: Everything Runs on Funding
Dot Five: Climate Crisis
Dot Six: Current Funding Errors Dot Seven: Infrastructure
Dot Eight: Equity
Dot Nine: How Banking works – out of thin air
Dot Ten: Opportunities – BIOCHAR – Carbon negative energy

HI Peter,
We will do what we can to promote your film, but until then the jury is out on many of these items. I have included below a request for help to Ellen Brown, author of Web of Debt, and expanded on my very short comment to you with some examples. I disagree that the very temporary kinds of carbon sequestration (that come either from the ag examples you mention or my own discipline – forest production) are worthy of much coverage when compared to the potential for multi-millennial sequestration potential of biochar and its production enhancements. I commend you for your efforts but there is much more to do. I suggest that the next installment could be entitled "The Deciders" and cover the process of how any small community could task each one to be part of deciding how the community handles critical decisions of population control, investment decisions … on a cyclical basis that involves everyone of voting age.
Alan Page
(the first of several sections)

Hi Ellen,
On June 15th Ron Marlow the co-chair of the Ma Public Bank Formation Study Committee asked me to summarize a wide range of comments that I made to the gathering in response to the MA Bankers Assn assertion that there was no problem that could not be handled by the existing private banking system.

I believe that between the testimony of David, John, others whom I do not know and myself we laid out a rational basis for the need and operating parameters for a state bank. Possibly unfortunately, my presentation spread the scope and need for the bank well beyond anything that I have seen or heard described in the past. However, Marlow said that he was hearing a call for a "revolutionary" approach to banking and I feel he was favorably impressed by what he heard.

The following is a set of points that I think a simple short summary must cover:
NOTE: This was a comment to the film clip for Carbon Nation. It was not accepted.
———
I have been asked by the MA State Banking Commission – Public Bank Formation Study Committee to connect the dots for them regarding why it is time for MA to have a Publicly owned bank. I wish I could just show them your film, but I believe that you have pulled too many punches. The dots that need to be connected include:

Dot Seven: Infrastructure – Dead IN The WATER – there is no way to fund it in the current debt based currency system because most of the time infrastructure does not have appropriate cash flow characteristics to qualify as a normal performing loan

EXAMPLE OF PROACTIVE COMMON GOOD PROTECTION – infrastructure items:
When any capital asset is purchased there needs to be a parallel commitment public good to enable the needed maintenance as a given – no questions asked- to keep that asset functional for its appropriate useful life.

Road condition maintenance:
In the northern regions we use rock salt to melt snow and ice from roads. This practice has many deleterious effects on vehicles and regional water quality. Lakes in the Adirondack mountains are now too salty for normal fresh water fish and other normal aquatic life to survive. There are other non-toxic beneficial melting compounds which would do the job but they cost more than salt. The asset base of the state is being eroded by the cost cutting measures adopted by entities established to protect the people of the locality. This is not well thought out policy.

Dot Eight: Equity – EXAMPLE: Everyone Deserves an Education, not just those born in good times

Dot Nine: How Banking works – PB capital source – the State really owns everything, we 'own' whatever we think is ours as a steward who must pay rent or royalties to the locality or we lose the asset, so the resource base of a state is its capital base when push comes to shove; PB credit source – as needed – "from thin air".

This is the most troubling area since anyone may choose to try to feather their nest. So need must have limits and so I chose to divide up funding into two parts – short term which should be regular repayment dependent and long term or infrastructure where repayment may take many different forms …

I haven’t done any analysis or math, but that sounds a lot more expensive and polluting than what we do now. We can’t reasonably grow our own fruit and vegetables because we don’t have the growing season. We can grow other stuff though. You can grow anything you want, but if you grow the stuff we can grow, you won’t have land available to grow a surplus of the stuff we can’t grow. If you just grow the stuff we can’t grow, then we’ll send some of our stuff down there when we come pick up the stuff we need. It’s a direct net profit for you and an indirect profit for us (it’s cheaper for us to go pick up fruit and vegetables than to try to build and maintain and heat an infrastructure that lets us grow them ourselves). Being less expensive overall also likely means less polluting because the greatest single expense will be fuel, whether for transportation or for heating.

I believe the last point in the last paragraph is the most obvious and easiest to implement. Here in Australia a lot of people have access to land. Th land they live on, whether owned or rented there is room and space to grow food. The bootomline will be: I your not growing or own food, or at least attempting to now, you are being left behind and you and your family will suffer.

we purposefully grow extra food to take to the FoodSwap and share out with strangers and neighbors.
and we are trying to get FoodSwapping nationally recognised here in Australia as a viable community building, food security awareness tool. https://www.facebook.com/pages/National-Food-Swap…

I believe the last point in the last paragraph is the most obvious and easiest to implement. Here in Australia a lot of people have access to land. Th land they live on, whether owned or rented there is room and space to grow food. The bootomline will be: I your not growing or own food, or at least attempting to now, you are being left behind and you and your family will suffer.

we purposefully grow extra food to take to the FoodSwap and share out with strangers and neighbors.
and we are trying to get FoodSwapping nationally recognised here in Australia as a viable community building, food security awareness tool. https://www.facebook.com/pages/National-Food-Swap…

I believe the last point in the last paragraph is the most obvious and easiest to implement. Here in Australia a lot of people have access to land. Th land they live on, whether owned or rented there is room and space to grow food. The bootomline will be: I your not growing or own food, or at least attempting to now, you are being left behind and you and your family will suffer.

we purposefully grow extra food to take to the FoodSwap and share out with strangers and neighbors.
and we are trying to get FoodSwapping nationally recognised here in Australia as a viable community building, food security awareness tool. https://www.facebook.com/pages/National-Food-Swap…

I believe the last point in the last paragraph is the most obvious and easiest to implement. Here in Australia a lot of people have access to land. Th land they live on, whether owned or rented there is room and space to grow food. The bootomline will be: I your not growing or own food, or at least attempting to now, you are being left behind and you and your family will suffer.

we purposefully grow extra food to take to the FoodSwap and share out with strangers and neighbors.
and we are trying to get FoodSwapping nationally recognised here in Australia as a viable community building, food security awareness tool. https://www.facebook.com/pages/National-Food-Swap…

I believe the last point in the last paragraph is the most obvious and easiest to implement. Here in Australia a lot of people have access to land. Th land they live on, whether owned or rented there is room and space to grow food. The bootomline will be: I your not growing or own food, or at least attempting to now, you are being left behind and you and your family will suffer.

we purposefully grow extra food to take to the FoodSwap and share out with strangers and neighbors.
and we are trying to get FoodSwapping nationally recognised here in Australia as a viable community building, food security awareness tool. https://www.facebook.com/pages/National-Food-Swap…

I believe the last point in the last paragraph is the most obvious and easiest to implement. Here in Australia a lot of people have access to land. Th land they live on, whether owned or rented there is room and space to grow food. The bootomline will be: I your not growing or own food, or at least attempting to now, you are being left behind and you and your family will suffer.

we purposefully grow extra food to take to the FoodSwap and share out with strangers and neighbors.
and we are trying to get FoodSwapping nationally recognised here in Australia as a viable community building, food security awareness tool. https://www.facebook.com/pages/National-Food-Swap…

I'm sure you're aware of William Spademan and the other folks working on Common Good Bank, right here in Western Mass, and also some of the things Terry Mollner's been involved with on long-term sustainable economies. Common Good, BTW, is having a festival next Sunday (10 July) on the Amherst Common, and I'll have a table.

If you need an intro to either or both, let me know and I'll make it happen.

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Why change the story?

By "changing the story" we change the lens through which we view the world. The 20th century story might be described as the "industrial growth" paradigm. We make sense out of our experiences based on norms which grow out of this old worldview which is no longer working.

The 21st century story must be about sustainable communities living within the natural limits of our planet. It must celebrate ecological balance and social justice. These blog posts use systems thinking to explore the opportunities and challenges of the new story.